Chicago

Grease for the meat

A hugely successful mayor begins to be bothered by scandal

LAST week Richard M. Daley, one of America's most powerful mayors, was questioned for two hours by federal law-enforcement officials. The Chicago Sun-Times had exposed an obscure programme in which the city paid politically connected truck owners to do little or no work, sometimes for bribes.

Once the feds began turning over stones in the “hired truck” scandal, other things started to smell bad, too. Federal prosecutors now allege that many city departments rigged the hiring process to dispense jobs as political favours. So far, 23 people have pleaded guilty; eight more are awaiting trial.

The top FBI official in the city told reporters after the mayor's interview that Mr Daley is not a target “at this time”. Yet Chicagoans with long memories vividly recall another Mayor Daley, Richard J., the mayor's father, who in his time made the city a byword for corruption; and they do not need long memories to recall that George Ryan, the former governor of Illinois, was not a target either when he was first questioned by federal officials in a different corruption scandal. Mr Ryan will soon go on trial on federal racketeering charges.

Mr Daley, a notorious workaholic with simple tastes, is unlikely to have lined his pockets with taxpayers' money. But might he have tolerated, or even encouraged, doling out jobs as political favours to tighten his control over the city?

If so, some Chicagoans are asking a different question sotto voce: does it matter? Mr Daley has pulled off ambitious takeovers of the city's schools and its awful public housing. The city has never looked better; the schools will open on time this year, whereas, in decades past, teacher strikes were an autumn ritual. The Sun-Times, his tormentor, has just finished a four-part series on the city's revitalised downtown that praised his visionary leadership.

“Government needs a little grease to cook the meat,” says Paul Green, a professor of policy studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago and the author of a book on Chicago's mayors. “You could reform yourself until nothing happens.” But clearly many voters could do with less grease. A Chicago Tribune poll, taken amid the scandal but before Mr Daley had his chat with the feds, found that the mayor had an approval rating of 53%—a sharp tumble from the 79% of the vote he won for re-election in 2003.

At a minimum, his opponents smell blood. Congressman Jesse Jackson junior, whose district includes Chicago's far south side, is acting as if he is interested in the mayor's job. Come election time in 2007, after nearly two decades at Chicago's helm, Mr Daley may well decide enough is enough—assuming no one else decides that for him first.